Ash Wednesday

What better time to begin a gardening blog than on the first day of Lent?

The sweet little snowdrops have burst through on the hill along the driveway, 12 cheeping newborn chicks are fuzzy and warm in my laundry room, and signs of spring certainly abound. My goal is to chronicle this amazing garden on Coppertop Trail. It is what first drew me to this home, and I still can’t believe it belongs to us now. We are on 5+ acres on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. About half of the land has been beautifully landscaped by the original owners over the last 12 years, with an abundance of perennials, bulbs, trees, vegetables, berries, and much more. A stream bisects our land and flows into a lovely pond, then out through a small, marshy area. The toil will be continuous, but the joys will be never-ending as well!

Today I spent a couple of hours working outdoors. Now it’s clouding over and starting to drizzle so I’m indoors sipping tea. I cleaned up and trimmed the plants (still removing all the alder and other leaves) above the rock wall along the driveway — maybe that area is about 80 feet long. I recognize the ferns, sedum, and possibly heuchera. There are a few azalea bushes, one of which is more than half dead, so we’ll remove it. Eager to see what colors pop from those! I can’t yet identify many of the draping vines and the small, low-growing cypress-type evergreen bushes. Some are very prickly, others not as much. Next, I worked on the Lenten roses/hellebores along the gravel stairway. Lots of life in those! Maybe 4-5 clumps. Trimmed bits and pieces of this and that on my way down to the raised beds. Cut back three raised beds of dahlias and two beds of gladiolas. On my way back in, I cut some of the snowdrops — and voilá!